Appearances Can Be Deceiving
by Gage39
Summary: What if Madison Lee hadn't been bad, but was pretending to be?


Appearances Can Be Deceiving

"_There must be something in you that's still good."_

"_I was never good; I was great."_

There was a time, a time so long ago that she could barely remember it when she hadn't been evil. A time when she had cared about people, when she wasn't so filled with hate and revenge that she had been happy. Madison Lee hadn't been happy in years. To be fair it wasn't totally Charlie's fault; the hate had started years before when her little sister and the joy of her life had been killed in a drive-by shooting by Raymond Henderson; a hitman for the DeSoto mob. She had vowed that day to pay the DeSotos back and then, to her utter astonishment, the Angels had been ordered to take down the DeSotos. She always viewed that day as a gift from heaven. She went rogue; she had too. She had to avenge her sister and she did. Granted she almost died as did her teammates but revenge was hers. After that she had been viewed with suspicion; she was no longer trusted. Overwhelmed with hurt and anger she handed in her wings and walked out the front door, never to return. She wasn't missed.

"_I have something you'll never have."_

"_Oh yeah, what's that?"_

"_Friends."_

Charlie had her replaced the very next day and she watched from the shadows as her teammates, her _friends_, quickly forgot about her and moved on. But something unexpected happened. They went up against someone who was even better trained than the Angels and her teammates died, but her replacement survived without so much as a scratch. Madison read about it in the papers, no one having had the decency to at least tell her. Furious, she unpacked her guns and put on a sexy outfit then hunted down the ones responsible for killing her former friends. Afterwards she paid a little visit to her replacement who didn't survive this encounter. Madison might not be a good Angel and she might have been forgotten but she herself had not forgotten them. No matter what she told herself that had been the happiest time of her life, when she had been an Angel.

"_There must be something in you that's still good."_

"_I was never good; I was great."_

Charlie knew it was her; there was no way he couldn't. He had to have at least guessed it was her who had killed her replacement and her friends' murderers. However, he said nothing. Instead he merely let it pass on by; choosing to mourn in private for the Angel he once knew who had now become a Devil.

"_I have something you'll never have."_

"_Oh yeah, what's that?"_

"_Friends."_

Madison spent the next several years building up a career for herself while, secretly, making quite a name for herself in the criminal underground. How Charlie never found out was something that would always remain a mystery to her. It didn't matter though; she no longer cared what Charlie thought. She wasn't an Angel who took orders from a speakerbox but a woman who listened to one person and one person only; herself. When she heard about the Halo rings she couldn't resist; it was the perfect way to pay Charlie back for the deaths of her friends and for kicking her out of the Angels. So, along with Ray Carter, the two of them sat up the perfect plan for stealing the rings. It would have worked too had it not been for the crisis of conscience she had late one night. She had been spying on the new Angels; trying to find their weak spots only to discover that each other was their weak spots. She had wanted to laugh; it was so typical of the Angels to bond and do things outside of work. She remembered weekends at the beach, window shopping and trips to the spa when suddenly it hit her. The trio roller-skating in the park, laughing and having a good time had once been her and her teammates. That had been when she realized that she couldn't do it; she couldn't kill the Angels nor could she condemn thousands of innocent people to die.

"_There must be something in you that's still good."_

"_I was never good; I was great."_

That was when she had come up with the perfect plan to get back at Charlie; she would pretend to be the bad guy while really being the good guy. She knew the Angels would retrieve Ray Carter but by the time they had reached him the ring was already gone. Phase One in progress. Next was the other ring, she shed no tears for neither the possessor of it or for the federal witness that had died; their deaths were necessary sacrifices. Knowing that the surfer she had hired would more than likely be stupid enough to leave clues behind that led right to him, she made sure she was at the beach that day when the Angels arrived. Phase Two in progress. She hadn't been the least bit surprised when they saved the kid's life at the bike races although she had loved the identical looks of shock on their faces when they learned their fellow Angel's secret; that had been a surprise to her too. She had, however, been surprised when the redhead had fled to Mexico; she hadn't been expecting that. The missing Angel showing up at the first showdown between her and the other Angels had been heartwarming. She hadn't been lying when she told them that she felt nostalgic for memories had been running rampant through her mind for days. She knew they wore Kevlar and suspected that they would survive the fall from the rooftop; they wouldn't have been Angels otherwise. Blowing up their care had been a nice touch, she had to admit. Secretly she had been relieved when she arrived on the rooftop only to find that the Angels had left her a gold telescope to look through. All that had remained was the final showdown. She had given it her best and had been pleased to see that the Angels gave as good as they got. Nice to see some things didn't change. She probably would have survived the fall that she took at the end but, being Madison, decided that she wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. Add a gold bullet to a ton of oil and what do you get? One dead Angel.

"_I have something that you'll never have."_

"_Oh yeah, what's that?"_

"_Friends."_

Charlie sighed heavily and looked regretfully at the open photo album sitting on the table in front of him. His fingers ran lightly over a picture; a picture of three beautiful girls, Madison in the middle. He closed his eyes and allowed their last conversation to run through his mind again.

"_There must be something in you that's still good."_

"_I was never good; I was great."_

His eyes opened and he closed the photo album with a snap before looking out the window at the darkening sky. Storms had always reminded him of the Angels; beautiful yet deadly. He had thought, once, that Madison didn't get the Angel spirit. Had thought that she didn't know what it meant to be a team player. Then her former teammates had died and within a week afterwards the people responsible for their deaths were six feet under. He had almost turned her in but had decided not to. Madison might not have been a team player like the others but when it came down to it she had been there, like an avenging angel. He hadn't been too surprised when the Angels told him what she had done; how she had taken her own life. He would have expected nothing less. He rose to his feet and left the room, his heart heavy as he mourned the death of yet another Angel.

"_I have something that you'll never have."_

"_Oh yeah, what's that?"_

"_Friends."_

A/N: I recently re-watched Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle and I hated how they made Madison out to be the villain. Personally, I don't think she was all bad; a little but not too much. Please let me know what you think of this.

To those of you who are wondering when I will post Smugglers 3: the first chapter will be uploaded sometime this afternoon.


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